Mary+Prine+LMF

//Learning Motivation and Fun//
 **I decided to focus on hobbies. Since I am a continuing education instructor for older adults, with no credit or grades to motivate my students, I would like to find out what sort of components will enhance the learning in this type of situation.

There were 72 instances of hobby in the LMF stories.

5 generalizations:

1. A successful educational is enhanced with an engaged instructor who is energetic, uses humor and cares about your progress. To test this generalization, I used the search to identify positive attributes of the instructor (high enthusiasm, high humor, high energy, low intimidation and high warmth), 14% of the responders listed all five. When the qualifications are reversed (low enthusiasm, low humor, low energy, high intimidation and low warmth), 0% of the responders agreed. Karmina 146, when faced with learning a difficult cheer routine in a short amount of time, thrived because of the peppiness and friendliness of the instructors. Kimsberly45 also mentions enthusiasm of the instructor in a surfing class, but also the helpfulness of fellow surfers.

2. Learning is enhanced if you feel that what you are learning is relevant to your lives. 31% of the responders indicated that this was a factor. Mechelle122 describes learning how to ride a motorcycle after winning one. Ron141 was able to use the message from health readings to improve his own fitness. Bob59 describes learning a piano piece by a group he enjoys,

3. Physical activity is an important factor in the learning experience. 52% of the responders stated that high physical activity was present in their learning experience. In this case, though, the definition of physical activity was interpreted by a range of activities. Adam57 describes skills learned as a young child. Although the physical activity of the skill was not high (welding, leather), it was the hands on experience which remained with him to this day. Aurora137 describes a more common reponse, a dance class. Ron113 enjoyed the rush of the exercise and challenge of a good rock climbing experience.

4. Experience is heightened when it involves other participants and high in sensory richness. When comparing students who were interacting with other students and those not interacting with other students, I found that 40% included other students, while only 2% were alone. Being with friends made a difference with Barbars131 and her choir, and John94 who biked Yosemite with friends. When the variable of high sensory relevance is introduced, over 60% of those who interacted with others had a high level of sensory richness in their successful learning experience. Of these students with rich sensory experiences, half were outdoors. So my generalization might include the outdoors. Surfing ranks high in these stories. Sarah23 was apprehensive about surfing at first, but used the beauty of tthe surroundings and her family support to successfully catch a wave on her first try.

5. Most students require some control in the educational environment, but also need some teacher interaction as well.** There were 20% of the students who indicated that their successful experience included a teacher who completely controlled the course. As expected, these were for activities which left very little room for digression (Barbara131 with a choir group, Holly31 who had to retrain her brain to read music and Brian 49 who built a frame in Second Life all needed the guidance of a teacher to succeed.) Interestingly, another 20% indicated that their learning experience was entirely controlled by themselves. Most of these activites are ones which do not rely on safety or simple instructions, with the exception of Andrew153, who learned how to drive a manual car. Fortunately, he had learned how to drive prior to this, and only needed to learn the manual. He seemed to have a good basis of understanding which probably enhanced the experience. He discussed the advantage of being accountable only to yourself, and a feeling of pride that he succeeded in this solo adventure.The remaining 60% included an experience which included some student control and some teacher control, which seems to be the ideal for most situations.